


Optare

by Golbez



Category: Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Future Fic, Gen, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golbez/pseuds/Golbez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight familiar lives, in a very different world.</p><p>What would the Investigation Team have been like if they had been born into the world of the Blue Planet?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Optare

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for some time now, and I'm glad to say I'm finally pleased with it. Take note that all the drabbles in this fic are set many years after FFIV:TAY, so a few details take this into account. I'm looking forward to writing in this setting, maybe even fleshing out the circumstances that'll eventually bring the IT together. It was actually pretty surprising how well they fit into the FFIV world.

_**fool.** _

Power dances at his fingertips, and he traces shapes and runes he's never used in the air, watching as the magic lingers for mere moments before dying away when they find no target.

The taste of wrong and sin is sharp on his lips. White Magic shouldn't come this easily to a Black Mage. Even the greatest of Sages take years to master both schools, and even then, Sages usually only began to actually train as Sages in late adulthood.

A sixteen year old Black Mage shouldn't be able to cast Curaga, much less one born from a family of ninjas that had no history of magic. It's more proof that he's different from everyone else, more reason for him to hide behind the masks he's carefully crafted, just as he once hid his powers while in Eblan, just as he keeps his silver hair neatly tucked away under his hat while in Mysidia. He'll keep this secret and bring it to his grave, and not even the intimidating Grand Master of the Black Mage Order can pry it from him. 

He snaps his fingers, and Thundaga comes to his hands, chasing away all traces of Curaga still lingering in the air.

_**magician.**_

He's been failing his classes.

He doesn't let his parents know, of course, but he has no doubts they'll find out eventually. It's hard to keep secrets from a family whose history is so closely entwined with the Mage schools. He does fine when it comes to the written work, so there's at least that, but it takes him long moments to execute the spells he should be casting with ease by now. A simple Cure takes him an entire minute, never mind even learning how to cast Cura.

He wants to get away from Mysidia. Maybe he'll run away to Baron with the next envoy that visits. Become a Knight. Maybe a Dragoon. Maybe he'll join the Red Wings. 

And then what? He'll fail badly again? Maybe he'll land flat on his face and they'll be merciful and kill him instead of sending him back here. That's what Baron is known for isn't it? That ruthless search for perfection he would never be able to match.

He wants to scream at his parents, scream at the Wizards and the Masters, scream at all his false friends and even at his only, actual best friend.

He settles for sneaking out of the city whenever he can, so he can scream his throat raw to the skies instead.

_**priestess.**_

The Epopts nod and smile approvingly as one, and her entire future plays out in her mind in an instant.

It's the highest of honors, after all, to be an Epopt candidate, even if she has no say in the matter, and she wants to storm out right then and there, wants to fly away from Troia like the birds do every winter.

But where would she go? Well, maybe she'll shave her raven locks off and become a Monk (even she's too vain to do that). Maybe she'll travel to Damcyan and learn to dance for the Bards (she's too shy to do that). Maybe she'll move to Mysidia and learn some other branches of magic (she's too weak to do that).

Or maybe she'll meet a boy from Baron, a handsome lad with gold hair and blue eyes, the purest of Baronian blood. He'll be a Dragoon, or a Knight, or even just a squire, and he'll bring her away.

(They'll live happily ever after, at least until she finds him with his best friend's much prettier wife, or until he dies dramatically in battle.)

And she'll be gone, far away from Troia, from this hell of a future she has no control over.

_**emperor.**_

The traveling merchants call him "the boy from Troia", and he doesn't know if it's a title he should carry with pride or not. They ruffle his hair and laugh whenever they roll in for the market season, even as he grows older, towards adulthood.

One of the merchant men teaches him how to fight with a sword and a shield, but he discards the sword soon enough, because it doesn't feel right in his hands. Besides, few Troian men are permitted to wield blades, and he isn't one of them. The shield, however, he keeps.

Sometimes when he's alone in the shop he takes the shield out, simply weighing it in his hands, feeling the smooth metal, and learning every inch of it. Sometimes he wonders what it'd be like to wear it everyday, to wield it at every battle, to live with sword and shield.

It's not what he wants, he decides. The fighting, the bloodshed. He'll learn how to fight, yes, because that's the way the world works, but in the end it won't be what he wants. 

He'll settle for being "the boy from Troia", if that's the kind of price he has to pay for staying with his mother, with the shop. 

Besides, who gave a single damn about what those outsiders thought?

_**lovers.**_

She takes Damcyan and Fabul by storm when she turns fourteen. At that point, she's old enough to wear the more revealing skirts, but too young to dance the dances that come with them. That doesn't stop her from using other ways to draw the audience's attention. Little details like a gaze held longer than planned, flashes of the pale skin of her thighs. It's not long before nobles of neighbouring nations start requesting for her presence.

She starts mixing it up, making her own dances. Sometimes she sings as well, and though many of the Bards scoff and laugh, the masses love her. It's part of her charm, her mentor tells her, she hasn't been trained but she can sing, can make them hope. She can make them believe they could be worth more than the dirt clinging to her boots. That's why they love her.

They shower her with gifts, and by the time she's fifteen she's well known enough to be invited to dance at the Crystal War anniversary in Baron. The world loves her, and wasn't that all she ever wanted?

The night before the party, for the first time in her entire career, she considers quitting.

_**chariot.**_

She's not like the other girls. As a child, she spent her days playing in the mud with the boys instead of attending lessons with the girls. Her mother never seemed to mind, laughing it off when the other mothers complained that she'd been tracking mud and dirt all over the school floor. She gets it from her father, says her mother. That's what happens when you bring a Monk to Troia.

She dreamt about it even as a little girl. Going to Fabul, training with the Monks, becoming one herself. She'll learn it all, and become strong, to fight, to feel that rush of battle she so craved and loved, to fear death at any moment as she fought for her life. 

And maybe something more. Maybe one day she'll be strong enough to protect those weaker than her, just as the current Queen of Fabul does.

And she hopes that, one day, she'll be worthy of the Fabulian blood that runs through her veins. 

_**fortune.**_

The forges and workshops of Baron are no place for a noble girl, but the Dwarf Queen once worked as an engineer, and she uses this as proof that there's precedent. There is simply no reason for the engineers of Baron to reject her application, just because she's a woman. She takes satisfaction in the look on their faces when the King himself agrees with her.

It's hard work after that. She cuts her hair and begins wearing trousers instead of dresses and skirts. Her hands become rougher by the day, and she can feel her body becoming tougher, skinny as she is, whenever she works in the forges.

Yet, the engineers are hard pressed to forget she's a woman underneath the grease and grime and soot. She knows they talk behind her back, knows they glance at her every so often, knows they're waiting for a chance to criticize her, for her to make some fatal mistake.

She won't give them that satisfaction, she decided this a long time ago. She'll show them what it means to be an engineer, and she'll make them see she's even better than them.

_**star.**_

The Summoners are all he knows in life.

His Master claims that the Great Serpent himself brought him to Mysidia, a mere boy carried by the waves, offered to the land. He has no recollection of this, or anything prior to that. All he has is his name.

A gift of the gods. That was the name he had whispered through the haze of fever, they tell him, and his Master often smiles and ruffles his golden hair and tells him that he is, indeed, a gift of the gods.

He doesn't know who he is, or where he comes from, and maybe he does wish that he knew who he was in the past, but that's all beyond him now, isn't it? He's here in, in Mysidia, learning magic at a pace many trainees could only dream of. It's not the only thing he's learning, of course. Sometimes, when he's on his own, when he concentrates with all his being, magic that's both familiar and strange surges forth in him, and he can feel his entire being changing, shifting.

Then he's waking and the world is spinning and he's himself again. Those nights, he dreams of racing through colorful forests, before breaking through the bush and out onto vast, beautiful plains of green and gold, and with white-capped blue mountains in the distance fading into the clear sky. In his dream, the sun is warm on his fur, the wind is beckoning him to lie down and play, but he never stops running.

He doesn't know what he's running from, and he always wakes up before he can look back. Those mornings, he feels nothing but sorrow and the sharp tang of loss.

Those days, all he has to do to start smiling again is to seek out the people he loves.


End file.
